Workouts, weeds and wee: the secret to good compost
I think I’ve discovered where the lost things end up in my house. They’re all in the compost heap.
That’s where the hand fork I mislaid last June turned up, and the widget I needed to fix the hose. Inexplicably, I’ve also unearthed a moth-eaten single sock; and, maddeningly, the keys to the shed. I’d been using the spare set for months.
I’m looking forward to finding a few more things this week, as it’s compost turning time. I haven’t written much about composting until now, and I can’t think why as it’s a central part of what I do here, and I am a little obsessed.
I have three big bins which I made myself from reclaimed wood, though they have done many years’ service and are giving way here and there now. And it’s not an overstatement to say these three unassuming boxes are the engine room of my garden.
Autumn is a good time for sorting out compost heaps as things are starting to wind down in the garden and as the veg beds empty, you’ll want lots of organic matter to spread as a mulch – like tucking them up under a blanket for winter.
So that usually empties out (too quickly, more often than not) the bin on the far right, which is the one that’s fully rotted down. Then you can get on with turning the compost.
This is an energetic but straightforward job. I fork everything out of one bin into the one next door, treading it down a little as I go. But if you don’t have room for three bins side by side, just fork everything out of your bin, then straight back in again to fluff it up and mix everything together.
The more you turn your heap the sooner it’s ready, as the extra oxygen you introduce speeds up the rate everything breaks down. At the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, they make compost in just ten weeks by turning their mammoth heaps more or less every week. That just makes me want to go for a lie-down, so I settle for turning once or twice, for useable compost in about nine months.
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